Senator John Cornyn’s resounding primary defeat in Texas on Tuesday has sharpened tensions between President Trump and Senate Republicans, and threatens to imperil the president’s agenda as allies who have stayed in lock step with him see his actions increasingly diverging from their interests.
Mr. Cornyn, who less than two years ago came within a handful of votes of becoming the Republican leader, was a popular and respected senator as well as a prolific fund-raiser, a dependable conservative vote and an able floor debater. His colleagues saw the president’s last-minute endorsement of his scandal-mired opponent as a move to punish a senator whom Mr. Trump deemed insufficiently loyal, an insult to the institution and a self-serving political mistake that put his party’s hold on the Senate at risk.
“It is very sad and unsettling, and not good for the Senate,” said Senator Susan Collins, the Maine Republican facing her own difficult re-election race who worked closely with Mr. Cornyn when he was the No. 2 Republican for six years ending in 2019.
Republicans found Mr. Trump’s decision to back Attorney General Ken Paxton over Mr. Cornyn especially perplexing given that Mr. Cornyn was far from a never-Trump rebel.
He did not vote to convict Mr. Trump on impeachment charges, as did Senator Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican who lost his primary earlier this month after being attacked regularly by the president. Nor had he broken from the party on select issues, as has Senator Thom Tillis, the North Carolinian who decided not to seek re-election after coming under fire from Mr. Trump.
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